Case Studies   The Danish Neighbourhood Regeneration Programme. Kvarterløft in Copenhagen

Special groups

Not everyone joins the process by himself or herself. You have to make special effort if you want to involve the ones who might find it difficult. Or at least know their needs.

An example is that Kongens Enghave has a large group of residents with mental problems. And very early in the process this was pointed out as an important issue. The group working with this issue tried to view it from that perspective. None of the participants were mentally ill themselves, but they had a lot of questions and problems about their neighbours. Therefore the group wanted more knowledge; they hired a professional to produce a report to find out the needs of the mentally ill in the neighbourhood.

Some don't show up because they can't. Others don't show up because they don't care. The latter has very much been the case with the private companies in the neighbourhood. There are a lot of new companies in Kongens Enghave but they did not participate in the regeneration activities. This was something that we wanted to change and together with our green jobhouse we set out to make them participate (see description under the cases).

3.6.3 Resident participation – development of resident participation empowerment     3.6.5 Partnerships - shared ownership